You're throwing a birthday celebration for your teen son and you want to make it a memorable event for him. Use simple party-planning tricks for decorating and food preparation and engage him and his friends in fun party games. They won't be disappointed, and they might just declare it the best party of the year.

Raging Appetites Menu

One of the tricks to keeping the teenage boys' stomachs satisfied through the duration of the party is to prepare a wide selection of foods for them to munch on. Set up self-serve food stations and allow the teens to be in control of their own toppings for tacos or cheeseburgers. Trays of bite-size snacks, such as miniature pepperoni pizzas and tortilla pinwheels, will be easily accessible for the teens to pick up and pile on their plates. Additionally, prepare fruit skewers with complementing dips, such as strawberries and chocolate fondue. Set up a "mocktail" bar and let teens blend their own drinks with fruit juices and crushed ice. For dessert, skip the cake and prepare a candy table. Give the teens a takeout box to pile in chocolate and chewy candies.

Teen-Inspired Themes

The proper party theme will be the trick to making your teen's celebration a success to him. Think of creative ways to incorporate his interests and favorite hobbies into every aspect of the party. Decorations, food and music should coincide with the party's theme. For example, If he's a sports fanatic, use baskets of sports balls for table centerpieces, hang sports banners and posters on the wall and bake a birthday cake to resemble a stadium. If you've got a game lover on your hands, create an arcade atmosphere in the party room and set up different board games and game stations, such as foosball. For a teen guy obsessed with a certain television show, such as "Survivor," decorate the backyard with tiki torches and grass skirts.

Team Outdoor Games

Since teen boys have a competitive nature, split them into teams and allow them to compete against each other in a series of outside games. Engage them in classic relay races, such as the sack race. Give each team a pillowcase. On the words "Go," the first member in each team must hop in the pillowcase, hop to the finish line and hop back to pass the pillowcase to the next player to repeat the same steps. Declare the team who gets all its members through first the winner. Additionally, set up two picnic tables with a few pies and have each team sit at a table for a messy game. The team who is able to eat its pies the fastest is the winner. Also, prepare a glow-in-the-dark scavenger hunt and let each team try to collect the most glowing objects.

Noncompetitive Games

Some games for teen boys can be just be for laughs and don't require a winner or a loser. Let the teen boys pretend to be rappers. Write a series of gross topics on slips of paper, such as dirty gym socks. Allow each teen to pick a slip from a hat. Give them 15 minutes to create their own original rap songs. Then, let them perform their raps in front of each other and get a kick out of how ridiculous they sound. Also, let the teen boys impersonate rock musicians and have the others guess who it is. Additionally, play a scary teen spin on the hide-and-go-seek game. Designate one teen to be the hider and the rest to be the seekers. The seekers must scope the house to find the hider. The hider must periodically use a cellphone to ring the house phone to provide clues to the seekers.

About the Author

Wannikki Taylor is a professional writer with a Bachelors of Arts in journalism from Temple University. She serves as a children's columnist and covers family entertainment for several print and online publications. She specializes in games, crafts and party planning ideas for kids and their families.